At 11:14 PM -0500 11/5/00, An Metet wrote:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Middle_East/2000-11/ruthless061100.s...
An influential think-tank advises Palestinian Authority to ruthlessly repress militant elements without regard for basic human rights
By Robert Fisk in Gaza
6 November 2000
Palestinian leaders have been shocked to read an American think-tank report which urges them to act "ruthlessly" against opponents of the Oslo agreement - even if this involves "excessive force", trials without due process of law and "interrogation methods that border on psychological and/or physical torture."
A draft copy of the report by the influential Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which has close links with the United States government, has been published on the internet and circulated among dozens of members of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, including Yasser Arafat's most senior intelligence officers.
This has been SOP for the U.S. for a half century or more. -- CIA training schools for torturers, assassins, death squads, etc. -- "College of the Americas" -- extremely "anti-constitutional" policies in countries the U.S. invades: confiscation of all privately-owned weapons, shutting down of newspapers and radio stations critical of the U.S. invasion, imposition of price controls...the U.S.G. treats moves into foreign countries as the chance to do everything it can't do inside the U.S. -- did I mention training torturers and death squad members in Honduras, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia (before the natives kicked out the U.S. soldiers via what the U.S.G. called "terrorism"), and numerous other countries (The U.S. Army had developed the "Can you fly?" torture method, where a group of Viet Cong or NVA prisoners were loaded onto choppers and then, one by one, pushed out at a few thousand feet. The Argentinians modified this for their treatment of the students, union members, and political activists they arrested by the tens of thousands: they loaded them onto C-5 cargo planes and pushed them out over the ocean. No wonder they "disappeared." The CIA no doubt updated their training manuals accordingly.) By the way, my best demolition manuals are from the U.S.G. (I picked up a set of four CD-ROMs with nearly all of the U.S.G. terrorism, assassination, mayhem, booby trap, and similar manuals. Precisely the kind of "bomb-making instructions" the criminals like Sen. Swinestein are trying to get banned.)
The document is dated 18 October and bears the name of Anthony H Cordesman - a former national security assistant to failed Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain - who is now holder of the Arleigh A Burke Chair in Strategy at the CSIS, named after the former Chief of US Naval Operations. His document is heavily referenced to CIA, State Department and Israeli sources and, according to Palestinian officials here, has been circulated within the US and Israeli governments.
Cordesman is also, ironically, a journalist for audio and audiophile magazines, the kind of magazines ("Stereophile," "The Absolute Sound") which report on the Tice Clock, an LED alarm clock which when plugged into any outlet in the room of a stereo system results in "a delicate softening of the mid-range digital signals, enhancing the perceived dimensionality of the tonal experience. The fact that the Tice Clock was _advertised_ in these rags, er, journals, was unimportant. (I'm not criticizing Cordesman for these audio things, just noting that I've been following his career since the Gulf War, when he was a daily commentator on CNN and similar networks. Yes, he's the same guy...no error.) --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.